A just-released study by Oracle, Redwood Shores, Calif., finds a large disconnect between the customer experience aspirations of firms and their actual practices.
More than nine in 10 companies (91 percent) say that they want to be a customer experience (CX) leader, but more than a third (37 percent) of firms are just getting started with a formal CX initiative. Only 20 percent of those surveyed said that they considered their CX initiative to be “advanced.”
According to the Oracle study, which surveyed more than 1,300 global senior executives, 93 percent of firms say that improving CX in is one of three top priorities for the next two years, and that the failure could mean a loss of as much as one fifth of company revenue.
Another critical disconnect was that 81 percent of companies said that social media is critical for success, but 35 percent don’t support social media for sales or service.
Among the issues preventing companies from delivering the customer experience that customers say they want, according to Oracle are:
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Slow adoption rate of customer expected capabilities
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Inflexible technology
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Siloed organizations and systems
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Insufficient investment
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Inability to measure performance
Oracle also points out that there is a strong divide between the impact that companies think CX has and the actual impact as shown by customers changing their habits. While a little less than half (49 percent) of the executives surveyed said they thought that customers would switch brands due to poor CX, nearly nine in 10 (89 percent) said they had switched in a 2011 RightNow study. Oracle acquired RightNow in March of 2012.
Additionally, 44 percent of executives said they believed that customers would be willing to pay for “great CX,” but the RightNow study showed that 86 percent of customers are willing to do so.
Much of the problem is that technologies and communication systems at many companies don’t’ deliver the experiences that customers want. According to the survey, less than half of companies cited the following as top areas of success:
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Personalizing communications with relevant offers/information based on customer segments/preferences (49 percent)
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Empowering customers to help themselves on any channel
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Providing service and support through mobile and tablet devices (39 percent)
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Enabling customers to start a purchase in one channel and seamless continue the transaction in another channel (35 percent)
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Integrating social media with service processes (35 percent)
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Capturing/maintaining a single view of customer behavior, interactions, product and service transactions to better understand customer needs, patterns and preferences (28 percent)
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Providing agents with real-time visibility into a customer’s shopping care and recent behavior on the Web or mobile (26 percent)
Companies expect that additional or upgraded technologies will help them increase their firms’ customer experience performance, and will increase related technology spending by 18 percent in the next two years.
To improve the cross-channel experience, 31 percent of companies are planning to invest in business intelligence and customer analytic solutions, while 29 percent said they will increase investments in technology to provide an integrated customer view across channels.
Other planned investments include:
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Knowledge management systems, mobile apps, e-commerce and Web experience management, each at 25 percent
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Online self-service, 24 percent
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Online click-to-chat option, 21 percent
In addition to moving forward with the technology investments, Oracle recommends that companies foster a customer central culture that transcends internal silos. Goals should be communicated across the entire organization, with visible metrics and rewards for specific achievements.